Restaurants, cafés, street food and Korean dining culture.
As international tourism to South Korea reaches new heights, wine is becoming part of the country's evolving dining and hospitality experience. Donghwan Kim explores Korea's changing wine market, consumer preferences, and opportunities for wine tourism. By Donghwan Kim | Wine Expert, Zaspero Wine https://zasperowine.com/
Time Out has named Seoul’s Jongno 3-ga the world’s coolest neighbourhood for 2026, highlighting its lively outdoor dining culture, traditional hanok streets in Ikseon-dong, and thriving independent food and hospitality businesses.
Singapore was among the early Asian markets to embrace Korean dramas and pop culture. Today, restaurants such as Itaewon Jjajang in Tanjong Pagar show how the Korean Wave has evolved into everyday dining, cultural exchange and local business opportunities.
Explore Seoul's world-ranked Jongno 3-ga, its outdoor dining culture, historic attractions, and lessons for successful tourism franchises.
Spanish cuisine has moved from a niche foreign-food concept to an established part of Seoul’s dining scene, while Busan offers a smaller but tourism-driven opportunity around Haeundae and other waterfront districts. SOHOFRANCHISE looks at Spain Club’s evolution since 2009, the dishes Korean customers repeatedly order, and why Cava and Rioja could become important parts of the business model.
Chicken has long been one of Korea’s most familiar post-retirement businesses. But with nearly 29,000 franchise outlets, rising operating costs and a 12% annual closure rate, opening a chicken restaurant can no longer be considered an easy or low-risk retirement strategy. SOHOFRANCHISE examines whether smaller, owner-operated neighborhood concepts could still work for Korea’s aging baby-boom generation.
Korea has one of Asia’s most mature pizza franchise markets, with hundreds of Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns outlets. Authentic Italian restaurants, however, remain far more fragmented and chef-dependent. With Korea attracting a record 18.9 million foreign visitors in 2025 and Eataly expanding to a fourth Korean location in Gangnam in August 2026, could premium Italian dining become Korea’s next scalable restaurant franchise category?
Born in Cheonan in the 1930s, hodu-gwaja grew from a regional walnut pastry into one of Korea’s most recognizable travel foods, supported by highway service areas, roadside stores and a distributed network of local manufacturers.
South Korea’s coffee market is entering a new phase. Low-price franchise brands such as MEGA MGC Coffee, Compose Coffee and Paik’s Coffee continue to expand through scale, convenience and aggressive pricing, while independent cafés increasingly compete through specialty coffee, design, neighborhood identity and destination appeal. As Korea’s café market approaches saturation, the next competition will be less about opening more stores and more about creating a clear reason for customers to choose one café over another.
Food, business services, education, wellness and other categories are attracting attention in 2026 — but growth alone does not make a good franchise.
